Introducing the AlgoMe Career Satisfaction Benchmark Report

At AlgoMe, we’re very well acquainted with the Asset Management, Fintech and the wider Financial Services industries. We understand how dynamic and exciting these areas are to work in and conversely, how the challenging factors such as regulation, Brexit and technology are creating new pressure points.

According toThe Investment Associationthere are currently 93,500 people employed in activities related either directly or indirectly to asset management – this is a significant community. The asset management industry alone directly employs 37,700 individuals at the end of 2016.

More than ever before, professionals and organisations need to be working at peak performance; which means sustaining a productive and stable workforce. We asked ourselves, where are we right now? What are professionals thinking and how does this stack up against what they are experiencing at work?

The report is a pulse check when it comes to working goals, ideals and motivation. The results have proved what we have been suspecting for a while – the workforce is changing and there are already fundamental gaps in expectations between employees and their employers.

The report supports professionals and companies by helping them to understand how to manage their roles and ambitions successfully – especially when it comes to identifying needs and weak spots. Please enjoy the read and feel free to share this with your colleagues and HR.

The AlgoMe Career Satisfaction Benchmark Survey is now out – download it now for great insights and advice

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With the decorations up, the last order date for Amazon nigh and most of us looking forward to at least a few days break, it’s always a good time to take stock of what’s been achieved over the last 12 months.

For AlgoMe this has been another exciting year.

January started in style with the launch of the AlgoMe Careers mobile app – giving professionals the opportunity to find their next career opportunity on the move.

Then in July we released our Industry Pulse Report – a check on what the industry was thinking about key topics such as Brexit, Pay Gap Reporting, MiFiD II and GDPR. Unfortunately it seems that the uncertainty that the industry was feeling due to Brexit is unlikely to have receded in the intervening period, but it’s good to see progress starting to be made in other areas such as gender and diversity.

In September we launched AlgoMe Community – a place for the Investment / Asset Management industry to come together, providing professionals with ways to grow their knowledge, profile and network. We’d like to say a big thank you to all of the members that have joined and contributed and look forward to continuing growth in 2019.

In November AlgoMe joined the Investment Association, becoming a Fintech member and working closely with Velocity, the Association’s new Fintech accelerator. This is a really exciting initiative and we’re looking forward to doing more with Velocity in the near future.

We also launched our Mentoring matching service in November – designed to help AlgoMe Community members connect with the best individuals within the community to help them to reach their career goals using a simple but intelligent process. If you haven’t already signed up to be a mentor or a mentee, please do spend 5 minutes now and tick off a New Year’s Resolution early.

As we go into the end of the year, we have also launched our survey on Investment Management, Fintech and the future of careers. The impact of Fintech on the industry is going to accelerate rapidly in 2019, but what has been less well documented is the impact on individuals, their careers and the skills they’ll need to succeed in a more digitised environment. We really value the input of our community members, so please spend a couple of minutes filling out the survey and we’ll make sure you’re the first to hear the results early next year.

From me and the AlgoMe team, I wish you all a very happy holiday season and look forward to another year of exciting announcements and change in 2019.

Rob

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I have always struggled to see a fair reason why employers should be allowed to ask about a potential hire’s current remuneration, other than to give them an advantage in pay negotiations.
It’s something which can only exacerbate existing pay inequalities and it’s abolishment can surely only be a positive thing.
Here the Guardian argues specifically about its impact with regards to the gender pay gap:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/gender-pay-gap-current-salary-question
I believe this has already been outlawed in some US states?
@Jonathan Max - would be interesting to hear the view from HR.

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The Investment Association recently gave the industry a boost when it announced the launch of Velocity, its FinTech accelerator. Designed to identify, develop and accelerate best in class firms with innovative solutions, Velocity will champion and facilitate the wider adoption of technology across the industry.

And AlgoMe will be involved in this too, which is why I’m excited to announce we are now a member organisation of the Investment Association as an official FinTech member and have been named a "company to watch" by Velocity.

Challenging Times
The Investment Management industry faces major challenges and opportunities from forces such as digital technology, pressure on fees and increased regulation, while at the same time there are widespread changes in the workforce and their expectations.

To date, Investment Management has both been fairly insulated from the challenges posed by agile FinTech competitors, but also distant from the opportunities offered by the new technologies and ways of thinking that such companies bring.

Bringing FinTech closer
Velocity is a fantastic step towards accelerating the adoption of FinTech. It has received support and endorsements from both inside and outside the industry, including from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip Hammond, who was enthusiastic about the initiative at a recent City event.

To drive change and innovation, the industry needs to connect across different disciplines and areas of expertise, driving new ways of thinking and fostering cultural change.

Without the benefit of emerging FinTechs and their external expertise, it will be hard for incumbents to harness the benefits of emerging technologies such as Straight Through deal Processing (STP), Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in areas such as risk and compliance, securities trading and investment decision making.

Our Mission
AlgoMe's mission is to connect the Investment Management industry and empower professionals to manage their careers. Our new product, AlgoMe Community, is placed to become the hub for the discussion between FinTechs and the companies and professionals in the wider Investment Management ecosystem.

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Brexit, MiFID II, GDPR, Gender Pay Gap and Diversity are the themes we consider top of mind currently which is why we’ve created the Summer 2018 AlgoMe Industry Pulse Report.

We wanted to get under the skin of some of these key events and burning issues for 2018. In doing so, we revealed some very interesting results and statistics.

Given a choice of 7 cities, Dublin, Paris and Amsterdam are the top three choices for Asset Managers, Fintech and Financial Services employees to relocate to following Brexit. While 54% would not consider moving as a result of Brexit.

When it comes to regulation; we are not surprised to find MiFID II and GDPR will affect over 60% of the roles in the industry.
Positively, 59% believe Gender Pay Gap Reporting will improve the career progression of women.

Please read the report for the full information and do get in touch if you would like to know more about your industry workforce.

The FCA outlined earlier this week, through the voice of CEO Andrew Bailey, the blueprint of the regulator's approach post-Brexit. In short - the way I read it - the FCA will aim to regulate towards outcomes in line with the European standards ("no race to the bottom") while operating with a hands' off approach ("principles and outcome based"). This is a very tight rope to walk ... Indeed, as I see it, the future UK regulation will need to be aligned with the European one, to ensure continuation of fluid collaboration and cooperation (the Europeans were quite clear on that matter during the Brexit talks), which the FCA is keen to deliver on. At the same time, the FCA seems to be responding to clamours of "too-much-regulation," which emerges regularly from some ranks of the Investment Management industry. I take the view that the FCA post-crisis approach - in line with most European regulators - has been to influence the resolution of issues that our industry is struggling to cope with on its own: Investor protection, transparency on costs, adequate governance models, conduct standards, diversity models and so on. This, to me, amounts to influencing a change of culture in our industry (which does not mean questioning the raison-d'être of the industry, i.e. increase the value of capital entrusted to us). Anyway, ten years of post-crisis regulation has brought some constructive changes to the industry, and some challenges, too, but I am not sure all has been achieved; it takes time to undertake a culture change as ambitious as the one we are tackling. As such, I find it risky that the FCA should lift their foot from the pedal so soon. In my opinion, the odds are high that the industry reverts to pre-crisis behaviours, if the regulator is already signalling that they will relax their grip on execution. I really want to hope that a change in approach will get to the ambitious outcomes that the industry needs, but we have been there before and failed to deliver. What would be different this time?

Guest blog from Julia Kirkland, Senior Partner at FSTP
If you don’t know already, which of course you do, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) is EU legislation which first came into effect in 2007. It was created to regulate firms providing services to their clients which are linked to ‘financial instruments’, these being shares, bonds, units in collective investment schemes and derivatives. In addition, it covers the venues where those ‘financial instruments’ are traded.

Fast forward 10 years or so and we have an updated version – MiFID II. This includes the revised MiFID and a new Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR). January 3, 2018 is the day MiFID II must be implemented across Europe.

Now we’re on the cusp of this deadline, the thorny and sensitive topic of Knowledge and Competence (K&C) is bubbling up as a major concern across the industry. We’ve spoken with numerous firms in both the Asset Management and Wealth Management sectors and they have one thing in common; they’re all grappling with the assessment of competence of information providers.

Who is in scope?
In Asset Management, this may cover a wide range of roles from sales teams, client services, broker servicing staff to Portfolio Managers (the really sensitive aspect of K&C). Managers may struggle with the fact they must tell a Portfolio Manager of 20 years plus who hasn’t got a formal qualification, they need to be assessed as competent and in a very short timeframe too.

In Wealth, the scope may cover desk assistants, team secretaries and portfolio assistants who may all be in direct contact with clients, giving them information about prices, valuations, charges and providing generic market or sector views. Additionally, research teams who might attend meetings with clients to provide market, sector or stock views on a non-advised basis may fall under this too. Most of the firms we are speaking to are including research teams. Most of the above staff members have never been included in formal K&C Schemes before but this has changed.

What happens in 2018?
As it stands, information providers not assessed by January 3 will need to be supervised in their activities and oversight of any client interaction must be in place. If you’re not prepared, January 2018 is fast approaching and maybe it’s time to look outside your company for third party support and assistance.

Our guest blogger Julia Kirkland, is Senior Partner, FSTP
FSTP is a training solution provider with expertise in MiFID II and the company also runs workshops to cover Wealth and Asset Management to meet the ESMA requirements and provides advanced K&C assessments for more seasoned, professional staff.

With all the tension and political noise....bit of Brexit humour to lighten the mood :-)

France's Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau has called her cat Brexit
WWW.STANDARD.CO.UK
France’s Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau has told how she calls her cat Brexit as he is “unsure whether he wants to go out or not” when the door is open. “He wakes me up miaowing like mad because he

The CSSF says existing Luxembourg-based companies “wishing to receive additional licences or substantially changing operational models to cope with Brexit-related aspects” should speed up their Brexit planning and “submit their applications […] as soon as possible”.
I am surprised that there are still companies that need to be reminded of this. Independent if you believe that Brexit will happen and if it will be a hard or soft Brexit, I would have thought any company by now would have done their risk assessment and would have put its plans in place ?